Never before have two inches of fabric been so controversial.
The style of wearing the collar on a polo shirt flipped up - or "popped" - has become a runaway trend in recent months, inciting both disgust and glorification among students. Pastel, striped, plastered with name-brand logos, double popped, or half-popped and half-down, these errant collars are causing a stir across campus.
"Especially with the opening of Rugby, there are a lot of NYU students shopping there and wearing the entire [preppy] look head to toe now," said Patrick Michael Hughes, professor of fashion history at Parsons, The New School for Design. "It's very urban."
Hughes also said that this trend is especially prominent in a city like New York.
"You're not going to get away with wearing the [entire preppy outfit on] mannequins in the suburbs, but in the city you can. It's a sort of costume-y thing. It's fun," Hughes said. "But not after 25- Then it's like, turn the collar down, relax."
With escalating numbers of students campaigning for or against the popped collar on sites like Facebook.com - by joining various groups on each side, 474 NYU students have indicated that they are in favor and 332 against - heated arguments have been taking place over the meaning of the trend.
"It seems impractical because the collar is supposed to go down, not cover your neck," Gallatin sophomore Ruby Thorkelson said. "It screams-"
"-Flagrantly arrogant," Gallatin sophomore Jake Stangel interjected.
Stangel said the style has been overdone.
"I know lots of nice people who pop their collar," he said. "But I think it looks really stupid - it's gotten to a point where it's tacky."
Even some students that follow the trend say it may be silly.
"Oh, I acknowledge that it looks ridiculous," Tisch freshman and occasional collar-popper Dan Clifton said.
Clifton created the NYU chapter of the Facebook group, "I'll Pop My Collar Whenever The Fuck I Want, Bitch (NYU Chapter)," at the beginning of the school year.
"Usually I only pop it for special occasions," Clifton said. "It feels as if there is some invisible shield of coolness that envelops the entire body. I'll have on the nice shirt, jeans and shoes, and I think, what would complete this ensemble? Maybe if I pop my collar. Maybe I'll even add the aviator sunglasses."
Other students said seeing a person with a popped collar will alter their perception of that person - in a bad way.
"It gives off an air of being stuck up and snooty - my immediate reaction is, 'You must be a jerk,' " Steinhardt sophomore Lucy Horton said. "It affects how I interact with someone when I first meet them."
But not all students react negatively to the trend.
"I get compliments [when I pop my collar]," Stern sophomore Greg Hammond said. "Girls will compliment you on your shirt. Guys will say, 'Oh, you're a pimp!' "
Hammond created the "Popped Collars are For Pimps" Facebook group last October.
Rather than a pimping accessory, some see the popped collar as a social class divider that further separates the rich from the poor at NYU.
"I think popping one's collar is a status symbol - that they can afford the label on their polo shirts," Horton said. "It's the mentality of showing it off."
Several students observed an increase of popped collars over the past year, and not just among wealthy WASPs.
"Now you see it in all different kinds of people, not just your rich white boy from Connecticut," Hammond said.
"I think it pops up in all demographics," Horton said. "I've seen it a lot in WASP-y rich suburbs, but also in hip-hop urban culture. It's a status symbol in each group to rise to the top."
Those just picking up on the trend might have missed the initial onset of the style, said Joshua Suzanne Ethier, 42, co-owner of Rags-A-GoGo, a vintage boutique in the West Village.
"I first started noticing the trend when models were walking into my store two years ago with their collars up, when it was cutting edge," Ethier said.
As the trend often goes in the world of fashion, old becomes new again. The fad has an extensive history.
The polo shirt, a preppy fashion staple, actually has historical roots dating back to 1925, when Rene Lacoste had his tailor make a polo shirt for him to play tennis, Hughes said.
Both Hughes and Ethier mentioned the film "The Breakfast Club" as a major promoter of the trend. "Even the girls are popping their collars in the movie," Ethier said.
Ethier also cited James Dean and Rock Hudson in the '40s.
The style hit its peak in the '50s, when polo shirts were all the rage, she said.
"It wasn't for the preppies, it was more like a West Side Story thing - you know, the Jets. It was a tough guy thing," she said.
Hughes, who used to pop two or three collared shirts at a time when he went to prep school, said that the style was originally popular at small elitist colleges. It was then subsequently copied in Europe in the early 1960s, especially in France, as the "Kennedy style."
"I remember seeing popped collars in the early '70s, with Nixon and the return of social order," Hughes said. "It came back in the early '80s with Reagan, and now again with George W. Bush. It has a conservative, old-school feel attached to it - a return to the classic."
But while the trend has been influential for some, it has become just another fashion for others. "It's not a specific style," Ethier said. "It's a blended popped collar style, not a uniform look. In the '60s and '70s, you were making a statement. Now, it doesn't mean you're a skinhead or a prep. It means you just have your collar up."
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